the melon

it was the heat, maybe,or just the benign neglectthat happens when we letall those thousand thingstug at our attentionin any casethat year the vegetable gardenwas full to bursting,overflowing with vines and leaves,great green fans spreading wide and low,and stalks reaching impossibly high,a flower, even, here and there,but nothing that we might call food

except a single melon.

we chased away the bunnies and the birds,

double-checked that it had water,

all in hope that we might harvest

one edible thing

from our thriving, barren garden

it might be extra-sweet, this melon,

the only fruit

of all those seeds and all that water,

all the richness of our soil–

surely we might console ourselves

that “it wasn’t much, but it was good”–

of course it will prove

a neatly-packaged, easy-to-digest

lesson about quality over quantity

in the end, though,

it was just a melon

we ate for breakfast–

not especially sweet

or large

or pretty

not a lesson or a consolation prize

not anything but itself

poem and photo (c) 2016 D. Ohlandt

please only reprint in entirety and with credit given

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